Risks associated with face masks

Using face masks to battle (and to protect from) COVID-19 is already being discussed for more than a year now, and until now it's confusing. The CDC is saying (sometimes yes and sometimes no) that wearing such mask is safe and necessary in order to protect you from COVID-19. We'll see.

Many ‘health authorities’ have relied on the obsolete ‘droplet model’ of virus transmission. If this model were correct, face masks would indeed work. But in reality, respiratory droplets – which by definition cannot be inhaled – play almost no role in virus transmission. Instead, respiratory viruses are transmitted via much smaller aerosols, as well as, possibly, some object surfaces. Face masks don’t work against either of these transmission routes.

For decades, studies have shown that face masks don’t work against respiratory virus epidemics. But with the onset of the coronavirus pandemic and increasing political pressure , suddenly studies appeared claiming the opposite. In reality, these studies were a mixture of confounded observational data, unrealistic modelling and lab results, and outright fraud. The most influential fraudulent study certainly was the WHO-commissioned meta-study published in The Lancet.

The WHO warns of various “side effects” such as difficulty breathing and skin rashes. Tests conducted by the University Hospital of Leipzig in Germany have shown that face masks significantly reduce the resilience and performance of healthy adults. A German psychological study with about 1000 participants found “severe psychosocial consequences” due to the introduction of mandatory face masks in Germany.

The Hamburg Environmental Institute warned of the inhalation of chlorine compounds in polyester masks as well as problems in connection with face mask disposal. The European rapid alert system RAPEX has already recalled 70 mask models because they did not meet EU quality standards and could lead to “serious risks”.

A study by the University of Muenster in Germany found that on N95 (FFP2) masks, Sars-CoV-2 may remain infectious for several days, thus increasing the risk of self-contamination. In China, several children who had to wear a mask during gym classes fainted and died; the autopsies found a sudden cardiac arrest as the probable cause of death. In the US, a car driver wearing an N95 (FFP2) mask fainted and crashed due to CO2 intoxication.

So far the studies. Now we will look at the results. Do the face masks really protect against the COVID-19 pandemic? Let the results tell you the truth.

How effective are face masks?

A May 2020 meta-study on pandemic influenza published by the US CDC found that face masks had no effect, neither as personal protective equipment nor as a source control. (Source). A Danish randomized controlled trial with 6000 participants, published in the Annals of Internal Medicine in November 2020, found no statistically significant effect of high-quality medical face masks against SARS-CoV-2 infection in a community setting. (Source).

A large randomized controlled trial with close to 8000 participants, published in October 2020 in PLOS One, found that face masks “did not seem to be effective against laboratory-confirmed viral respiratory infections nor against clinical respiratory infection.” (Source). A February 2021 review by the European CDC found no high-quality evidence in favor of face masks and recommended their use only based on the ‘precautionary principle’. (Source).

A July 2020 review by the Oxford Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine found that there is no evidence for the effectiveness of face masks against virus infection or transmission. (Source). A November 2020 Cochrane review found that face masks did not reduce influenza-like illness (ILI) cases, neither in the general population nor in health care workers. (Source)

An August 2021 study published in the Int. Research Journal of Public Health found “no association between mask mandates or use and reduced COVID-19 spread in US states.” (Source). A July 2021 experimental study published by the American Institute of Physics found that face masks reduced indoor aerosols by at most 12%, not enough to prevent infections. (Source).

An April 2020 review by two US professors in respiratory and infectious disease from the University of Illinois concluded that face masks have no effect in everyday life, neither as self-protection nor to protect third parties (so-called source control). (Source). An article in the New England Journal of Medicine from May 2020 came to the conclusion that face masks offer little to no protection in everyday life. (Source).

A 2015 study in the British Medical Journal BMJ Open found that cloth masks were penetrated by 97% of particles and may increase infection risk by retaining moisture or repeated use. (Source). An August 2020 review by a German professor in virology, epidemiology and hygiene found that there is no evidence for the effectiveness of face masks and that the improper daily use of masks by the public may in fact lead to an increase in infections. (Source).

Doubling down

After mask mandates had been implemented globally and hundreds of billions of dollars had been spent on masks, it soon became obvious – once more – that masks simply don’t work against respiratory virus epidemics. But at that point, neither politicians, nor ‘health experts’, nor duped citizens who had to wear them for months wanted to admit this anymore.

Instead, some ‘health authorities’ doubled down and enforced outdoor masking (even on beaches), double-masking, or N95/FFP2 masking, to no avail. The one novel scientific insight produced during the coronavirus pandemic was that even N95/FFP2 mask mandates have made no difference at all.

The truth is that the risk of infection (of any infectious disease) is when you are inside at home or office or workplace, and not outside with many people close together. That's also the reason why lock-downs do not help at all!